I sat down at the table in the side-room, yawning. Jess appeared from the kitchen and sat down next to me. I poured us both some coffee.
From the corridor came a sound like the hoofs of a dainty pony, and there was Rosalie, with a tray of toast and butter. Tom was right; cashmere twin-set, Burberry scarf tied jauntily around the neck, tweed skirt and stilettos. Amazing.
‘Hello!’ she said merrily.
‘Lo,’ Jess and I grunted.
‘Mike’ll be along in a minute – he’s just finishing the eggs. They look good, I’m telling you. It’s a lovely day out there. Your parents and Chin have gone for a walk.’ It was like having our own personal CNN news roundup.
‘Where’s Kate?’ asked Jess. ‘Has she gone too, or is she back at the cottage?’
Rosalie frowned. ‘Oh, of course, and Kate too. Sorry.’
Kate and Rosalie were not destined to be best friends, I could see that. Apart from the fact that Kate was scary, and Rosalie was mad, Kate and Mike were close: they always had been, ever since Mike moved in with Kate and little Tom for about a year after Tony died. They still do things together, like go for long walks. Before all this Mike had sometimes stayed with her rather than at Keeper House. I think he sometimes found it a bit strange to stay in the house that might have been his cluttered with roller skates, wet gym gear and an endless succession of pink girls’ toys manufactured in Taiwan, it must have felt as if it was yet wasn’t his home.
At that moment he came in, carrying a pan of scrambled eggs and wearing a paper hat. He was still in his tatty old dressing-gown, which looked much the worse for his exertions of the previous night. He was singing ‘La Donna E Mobile’ in a fruity operatic tone. It struck me that he looked more at home here this Christmas than I’d ever seen him. Although if Mike’s in a good mood and you’re one of twenty people in the same room, within ten minutes you’ll be doing the conga down the street, strangers from around the corner will be begging to join in, shops will hang out bunting and sell fireworks, and the council will declare a public holiday. I perked up at the sight of him.
‘Elizabetta! Mi amore. Have some eggs. Give me your plate.’
Mike had inherited from our grandfather a gift for making perfect scrambled eggs. ‘Hold on a second,’ I said.
‘Come on, stop dousing that nice bit of toast in sheepdip and hand it over. How disgusting you are! Rosalie, my peach, my nectar called Renée, have you ever had Marmite?’
‘Yes, and it was totally gross,’ said Rosalie. ‘My first husband had a kinda fetish for it. He had it flown over from Fortnum and Mason. God, some of the memories I have stored up here. Yeuch.’
There was a pause. Jess and Tom made choking sounds. Mike said, in outraged tones, ‘Woman! Please! Remember you’re talking to your second husband now, and his beloved nieces and nephew! They do not know whence your previous spouse and his extraordinary nocturnal proclivities hailed, nor do I wish them to. I do apologize, children. Don’t tell your parents about her.’
Rosalie giggled.
‘Aaargh,’ Mike shrieked. ‘You’ve distracted me with your bizarre Marmite routine and the eggs are overcooked now.’
‘Oh, God, please don’t worry,’ I begged. ‘Honestly! I’m starving – just dish it up.’
Mike slid the eggs on to my plate.
‘What about me?’ Jess demanded.
He held out the empty pan. Jess looked as if she might cry, but that was nothing new. ‘Have some of mine,’ I offered. ‘I’ve got loads.’
‘No, I’ll make some more,’ said Mike. ‘It’ll take two secs. Hold tight, Jessica. Don’t cry.’
‘I’m not going to cry! Jeez!’
Tom helped himself to another piece of toast.
‘You OK there, Sparky?’ said Rosalie, smiling at him.
‘Sure am,’ said Tom.
The phone rang. Tom, Jess and I glanced at each other guiltily, knowing that none of us had any intention of getting up to answer it.
Mike shouted, ‘Someone get that, will you? I’m breaking eggs in here.’
I relented, and ran through into the hall, hugging myself in the sudden cold as I picked up the handset.
‘Hello?’ I said.
‘Lizzy? It’s me.’
‘Georgy!’ I yelled. ‘I’ll take this into my room, hold on.’
‘Good – but hurry up. I can’t talk for long. Uncle Clive’s just arrived and we’re all going to do handbell ringing in a few minutes. Oh, God, get me out of here.’
The purpose of any best friend worth their salt is to listen with apparent fascination while you rant about on a number of subjects, in this case 1. our families and how mad they were (Georgy’s Uncle Clive and Aunt Matilda – who makes corn dollies – were contenders, but I won, hands down); 2. men, and the hieroglypthic language they speak (won that one, too, with my tales of David’s reappearance by the grave); 3. random Christmas presents (Georgy is a glamorous girl who runs a top hotel in central London: her aunt gave her a single hyacinth bulb in a plastic bag – nice); and 4. what we were wearing to our friend Swedish Victoria’s Pikey New Year’s Eve Party.
But since Georgy isn’t really a part of this story, and since our conversation would have been of no interest to anyone but ourselves, I felt a bit strange when I put down the phone twenty minutes later. For the first time since I’d come back to Keeper House, I felt myself peeling away from home life, and wanting to be in my flat, chatting and watching TV with Georgy over a glass of wine. It’s good to feel like that, though – I always arrive at Keeper House dreading having to leave, and the desire to embrace my normal life can come as something of a relief, an affirmation that I am a rational twenty-eight-year-old, not a crazed dumped person, marooned at her parents’ home, still in her pyjamas at eleven a.m. on Boxing Day.
I went back downstairs, where Mike was lighting a fire with the ecstasy of a ten-year-old. Tom and Jess were eating their eggs in companionable silence, while Rosalie gazed into the garden, hands folded in her lap, perhaps imagining herself as Queen Elizabeth I or the gracious hostess of some elegant soirée, gliding through the halls in a silk dress, Mike adoringly at her side.
The fire crackled and Mike rocked back on his heels to take a gulp of coffee. I ran my hands through my hair and bit one of my nails. I glanced at Tom, who looked relaxed and happy, and felt content again.
Rosalie turned to him. ‘You must come and stay with us in New York. Mike’s moving into my apartment, and it’s pretty big. You’re so welcome. I want to see you all over there before the year’s out – hey, we’re family now, aren’t we?’
It’s funny when I look back at that scene now. In a few days everything would change, and at that moment I had no clue of it, no clue at all.
NINE
By the end of Boxing Day, I wished Tom had taken up Rosalie’s offer immediately. His new-found desire to help others and reveal the truth had accomplished the following:
Chin had threatened to kill him.
His mother had offered bodily violence against him.
He had made my mother cry.
And – this was a stroke of genius – he had probably managed to split up Chin and Gibbo.
I’m not sure where it all went wrong. I can see that after unburdening yourself as Tom had done, you might want to help others help themselves, and I can also see that he had imagined touching tableaux of grateful relatives kissing his hands and thanking the Lord he was gay for it had shown them the path to their own happiness. What I’d forgotten was that Tom is, and always has been, disastrously tactless. He has all the strategic acumen of – well, I’m not too hot on military history and it’s been a while since I last read Asterix the Legionary – let’s say, a really bad general. He means well, but he can’t bring all the cohorts and squadrons together in a satisfactory way.
Tom’s first course of action was to try to embrace Rosalie – both literally and figuratively – into our family. Because she’d been the first to speak up after his ‘shock’ announcement,
he clearly now looked upon her as a worthy recipient of the most intimate family confidences. By the time the walkers came back we’d rustled up some lunch and, as we tucked into our turkey leftovers, Rosalie asked Chin why she’d cheated on her fiancé Bill with his best friend, then asked Kate whether she’d had any side effects from her hysterectomy.
Chin gaped, and Kate said, no – but the up-side was that she’d never have any more children like Tom.
After lunch Tom sloped off with his NBF Rosalie to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
‘God,’ breathed Chin, as she prowled around the sitting room, pursued by an emollient Gibbo, ‘doesn’t she have any tact?’
Kate stopped pacing in front of the fireplace. ‘I blame Tom,’ she said. ‘Well, I blame her too, but I especially blame Tom.’
‘Poor Tom,’ said my mother, absently, on the verge of going to sleep.
‘It’s just so…rude,’ said Chin.
‘Well, yes,’ said Mike, helplessly. ‘Rosalie seems to absorb information like a sponge…’
‘Well, tell her to mind her own business in future, OK?’ Chin fumed. ‘And, Kate, you can tell your son not to be such a blabbermouth.’
‘And you, Chin,’ said Gibbo, from the corner of the room, ‘can stop sleeping with your fiancé’s best friends.’
I shrank back into the sofa. Brave Gibbo. Brave, stupid Gibbo, we hardly knew ye.
‘How dare you?’ Chin hissed, advancing on him. ‘For your information, even though it’s none of your business, I wasn’t engaged to Henry when I slept with Bill.’
Dad raised his eyebrows and retreated behind England’s Thousand Best Churches.
‘Oh, right, right…’ Gibbo nodded. ‘Well, that’s OK, then.’
‘You—’ Chin spluttered.
Gibbo raised a long, looping eyebrow. ‘What, Ginevra?’ he said coolly. Suddenly I saw where the balance of power lay in the latest Chin relationship, and I liked it.
‘Oh, forget it,’ Chin said, and grinned. ‘You’re right. Nobody’s perfect.’
‘With the possible exception of the bloke who invented the Norton Commando,’ said Gibbo, and went back to his motorbike magazine. Chin sat down next to him, beaten but happy. She tends to be the stroppiest girlfriend in the world, which is why the cruel record executives and suave men-about-town always dumped her, but now she just sat there quietly and tucked her hair behind her ear. Gibbo put his hand on her thigh and squeezed it. Chin smiled.
‘Suzy, when does the surgery reopen?’
‘Tomorrow.’ Mum sat up. ‘And John’s got to go into town for a meeting with the solicitor about the planning permission for the roof, so he’ll be gone quite early too. Mike, are you going with him?’
‘Me? No,’ said Mike, sounding surprised. ‘I was going to take Rosalie for a drive, maybe stop off at a pub and have some lunch, show her a bit of the countryside. And possibly kit her out with a really good Groucho Marx disguise in case she says something to make you want to lynch her again.’
‘Oh,’ said Mum, ‘I must have got it wrong…I thought you were the one who suggested the meeting.’
I sighed. Apart from Mum, no one else seemed to share Dad’s all-consuming interest in the roof. I knew it needed doing, but really…
‘No,’ Mike said, ‘it’s sorted out now, don’t worry. In fact, I—’
The phone rang. Jess, on her way upstairs to fetch something, shouted, ‘I’ll get it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mike, leaping up. ‘I will. I think I know who it is. I’ll have a word with Rosalie, too.’ He winked and disappeared.
Silence fell as everyone picked up their books or dozed off. I looked down at my lap and realized I’d picked up a birdwatching guide from the dresser in the drawing room, not my Georgette Heyer. ‘Damn,’ I said, and got up, but no one took any notice. Kate and Mum were having a nap, Dad was reading, and Gibbo and Chin were whispering in the corner by the french windows. The fire was crackling and spitting but apart from that it was quiet enough to hear the ticking of the grandfather clock by the door. I crept out quietly into the deserted hall and heard Mike’s voice coming faintly from the study. I wondered idly why he’d gone in there to take the phone call as I went into the dining room and picked up Devil’s Cub. Suddenly I heard him say, ‘Yes, Lizzy’s here – they’re all in the sitting room. I thought you wanted me, old man.’
I know you shouldn’t eavesdrop but, really, come on. My ears didn’t exactly swivel and rotate like Inspector Gadget’s, but they came quite close.
‘David – I say, no, David – I don’t think that’s a very good idea.’
David? I flattened myself beside the dining-room dresser in case someone should walk past. My heart was pounding.
There was a pause, then Mike said, ‘You want to do what? Why?’ I could hear him drumming on the desk – a sure sign of irritation.
A floorboard creaked beneath me. The silence in the rest of the house was overwhelming.
‘Think of how it’d upset things – think of Lizzy’s feelings, David. You loved her, didn’t you? What would telling her all this do to her?’
I breathed in and looked out over the courtyard to the fairy lights on the tree, shining brightly in the gloom.
‘No, don’t come round. It’s really not a good idea. I mean it.’
The drumming continued, faster and faster. ‘Come on, old chap,’ he said finally. ‘You can still be the good guy here…What?…OK, then. Good…All right, I’ll speak to you soon…No, she’ll be fine. You’ve done the right thing. Just leave her alone.’
I heard him put the phone back on to its cradle. ‘Little shit,’ he said, quite distinctly, then slammed his hand on the desk. Mild, sleek Mike, so affable and relaxed? I caught sight of his face as I walked out into the hall and my blood froze. I’d never seen him so angry, ugly almost, eyes smouldering.
I waved Devil’s Cub at him as he emerged from the study.
‘Lizzy-lou,’ he said, as he saw me. His face instantly ironed itself, the creases of rage replaced with his usual affability. ‘You look like a man who’s just swallowed a fifty-pound note and doesn’t have any cash left in the bank. Do I mean that?’ He looked up in the air as if expecting someone to answer from above. ‘What’s up, Titch?’
‘Ooh…nothing,’ I said lamely. ‘Who was that on the phone?’
‘Christian Bell – you remember him? Nice chap. I was at university with him. Told him I was coming back for Christmas and he was ringing to fix up drinks. Now, come on, why don’t we play a game or something?’ He put his arm round me and squeezed me tight. ‘If it’s Trivial Pursuit, bags me not with Jess.’
‘Not fair,’ I said. ‘Bags me not with Jess either.’
I was thrilled that he was lying so I wouldn’t know David had called, but I was dying to know what David had said. Did he want to apologize for what had happened? Or what he’d said yesterday? Was he starting a local branch of the Young Ornithologists Society? Had he fallen on hard times and decided he needed the ring back? Well, he couldn’t have it. When people asked, in sepulchral tones, ‘So, what did you do with the ring?’ I replied sadly, ‘I’ve hidden it away. I think it’s for the best,’ but in fact I’d accidentally dropped it down a crack in the floorboards in my bedroom and never got round to retrieving it.
David would find this amusing. I was always losing things and he was always finding them. I thought of the fury in Mike’s voice as he hissed, ‘Little shit,’ and loved my uncle even more for taking care of it all.
‘Hmmn,’ Mike said. ‘Why don’t we go and find my tactless wife? I want to behave like a king. I want to lie on a sofa and eat chocolates and watch TV. Like a pharaoh. A pharaoh with a television.’
We stayed in all afternoon as the weather got worse. When Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ended, we moved on to Murder on the Orient Express. The Wizard of Oz and The Wrong Trousers. The wind raged outside and we lounged around until tea-time.
As we sat down to supper, Chin and Kate wedged themselves next to
each other and glared at Tom. Chin had sworn to cut off his privates if he spoke to her again, and his own mother had told him that if he breathed another word about her gynaecological histories, she’d stick a fish knife in his leg. But Tom was undeterred. He turned to Mike and asked him what he thought of the Davis Cup – could Philipoussis stage a comeback against Capriati? I’m not sure I’ve got that right, but I’m fairly confident they were talking tennis.
Anyway, supper progressed in this vein. Dad was agitated about his meeting with the solicitor; he said nothing throughout the meal, but grated pepper over his soup for about three minutes, then ate it without turning a hair. Mum was quite looking forward to opening the surgery the next day. Getting back to work doesn’t seem to fill her with the dull, vomit-inducing dread it does most of us, even if, like me, you don’t mind your job. She was bright and sparky, joining in Tom’s and Mike’s arguments about Nasser Hussein’s batting average (perhaps it was cricket they were talking about. Who knows?).
‘You used to be so good, Tom,’ she said. ‘D’you still play?’
‘I’m in a team at work, but it’s not much cop,’ said Tom. ‘Wareham did pretty well last summer, though, didn’t they?’
‘They’re still pretty useful – but they’ll miss David this year,’ said Dad, spreading butter on his roll. ‘He was the star bowler, I seem to remember. Always saved the day.’
‘Er,’ said Tom hurriedly. ‘Uncle John…’
I got on with my soup, wishing he’d shut up.
‘How – um – how did they do in the end, then? Wareham,’ Mum asked, in the silence that followed.
‘They did jolly well, actually,’ said Mike. ‘Top of the local league.’
I stared at him. ‘How on earth do you know that? Is the Wareham team newsletter distributed on the Lower West Side?’
‘Internet, dummy,’ said Tom. ‘It’s how I know Jimmy Gooch maintains his batting average. Unfortunately, it’s also how I know he hasn’t died and turned into slime, as I fervently hoped he would.’
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